As ever, September has arrived and there is a feeling of wondering where the summer for all those jobs you need to get done has disappeared to. There was a great deal of activity in getting HHuLOA and the PathFinder programme off the ground in June and July, but what else has happened since then?
As it turns out, quite a lot. Open access is so core to activity within our institutions now that it is certainly far more than a project activity, as is being evidenced by the HHuLOA project. And good progress has been made institutionally that will be reflected further through this blog in the coming weeks. This post provides a summary of developments at three/four months in. It also reflects the main area of project activity in this first stage of the project, which was to establish a baseline of activity within each institution.
Structures and policies
All three partner institutions are establishing open access and research data management on a firmer institutional footing. Hull is transition from a RDM Working Group to a more formal RDM Steering Group, whilst an Open Access Steering Group has been proposed as part of a new Open Access Policy that is being submitted to the University Research and Enterprise Committee shortly. Interestingly, the cross-faculty representation on the RDM Working Group were not keen on expanding the remit to include open access but focus attention on the issues of RDM (for which a separate institutional policy is also in the process of being agreed). By contrast, Lincoln has formed a single Research Information Services Group (RISG) to address RDM and research information, and this has recently had an institutional Open Access Policy approved that is taking open access as the norm, and non-open access as an exception. Cutting the cake slightly differently again, Huddersfield is developing a joint Open Access and Research Data Management Policy being developed at Huddersfield, and has been undertaking researcher advocacy sessions on this prior to approval.
Compliance and monitoring
Policy development seeks to mix the carrots of open access with the stick of compliance. Much of the open access activity within our institutions at the moment is geared, or is gearing, to compliance. The recent RCUK reporting exercise was a valuable way to get a status check on where each institution is at, and provide insights on what needs to be done for ongoing RCUK compliance whilst also making sure that HEFCE OA policy compliance is covered at the same time. Key to making future progress is establishing better monitoring processes. Huddersfield is viewing this as an essential part of growing the use of open access, for compliance and more generally, and is carrying out work to improve internal processes as well as playing an active role in the Jisc Monitor project. Mirroring this, RISG at Lincoln has set out a number of tasks for systems development with this in mind, and Hull has been developing a set of process and system requirements to underpin its Open Access Policy. Whilst much of this work is looking ahead, it is good to have identified the steps involved now. HHuLOA will be looking to share these soon.
External activities
Open access cannot, of course, exist just within the institutions, and all three partners have been looking to broaden their involvement with other services. Lincoln has been able to start submitting theses to BL EThOS service, whilst Hull has been able to start submitting statistics to the IRUS-UK service: Huddersfield has continued to develop the OAWAL blog with Portland State University to aid librarians in their management of open access workflows. More on this can be read at:
Emery, Jill and Stone, Graham (2014) Introduction to OAWAL: Open Access workflows for Academic Librarians. Serials Review, 40 (2). pp. 83-8. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/20272/
Monographs and institutional publishing
Whilst much open access activity has been focused on journal articles (not least because of the compliance required) Huddersfield have continued to develop their interests in open access monographs. They are currently working on the OAPEN-UK open access monographs project to co-write an author’s guide to publishing open access monographs, and have published five titles through the University of Huddersfield Press into the Directory of Open Access Books.
The Press is also a journal publisher, and hosts five titles with two more on the way. It is recently been accepted into Sherpa RoMEO, and entries in the Directory of Open Access Journals and Library Publishing Coalition Directory are forthcoming. This internal approach can provide a valuable outlet for research dissemination using open access routes.
Advocacy
Everything the partner institutions have done has an advocacy element to them. Two further examples are picked out here for additional context:
Huddersfield recently presented a paper at the 2014 ALPSP conference on the potential impact of Open Access repositories and library scholarly publishing on ‘traditional’ publishing models (http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/21215/), laying out some of the thinking that informs the University Press.
Hull has had a new PVC Research and Enterprise start in September. Getting senior management buy-in is essential to getting policy, structure and compliance matters addressed, and it was pleasing to get an invitation to a meeting to explain open access for the new arrival. This invitation came at the initiative of the Vice Chancellor, and it was of note that open access had hit as an issue at this senior level to warrant the need to make it one of the first matters the new PVC needed to deal with. A lot of this has been driven by the HEFCE open access policy, which has the potential to act as a huge open access lever more generally. The new PVC is from industry and is learning a lot about Higher Education. Uppermost was a key message, though: how can open access help to make the University more successful in its research. It is precisely this question that HHuLOA will be seeking to answer.
Looking ahead
Over the next few weeks the project and the partner institutions will be focused on the following:
- Confirming our baseline for dissemination and to inform future planning
- Sharing this with the projects at Coventry and Northumbria on 27th October
- Engaging in Open Access Week events and carrying out local staff development sessions
- Creating a tool for navigating the policy landscape (noting new developments such as the Charity Open Access Fund)
- Bringing together our plans and ideas for open access services and what is needed for these
It promises to be a busy, but exciting, period for open access development.